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Let’s
face it, ever since the first couple of Tomb Raider games,
the series’ creator Core Design rested on its laurels. Gamers have
had to sit back and watch Lara Croft’s assets go from pert  and
perky to stretched and sagging, with the only noticeable difference
between instalments being changes to her cup size. Core Design were
finally and sensationally kicked off the series after the hateful
fifth sequel, Lara Croft; Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness, and
US studio Crystal Dynamics was brought in to give the old girl some
much needed back support.
Rather
than simply copying the rusty formula Core Design had used since
1996, the new development team spent more than a year looking back
at the essentials of the Tomb Raider series and
re-discovering what gamers really wanted from it. They even brought
in Lara’s original designer, Toby Gard, as a consultant for the
new game. The result of their research was that gamers wanted to
explore vast, exotic locations and raid tombs in them, not to
mention take control of a much more responsive and dynamic Lara as
part of a captivating and entertaining story. Lara
Croft; Tomb Raider: Legend is exactly what
Platform/Adventure gamers have been searching for ever since the
original  Tomb Raider broke new ground in 1996. Crystal
Dynamics’ fresh approach to the series has brought back the basics
that we all know and love, while renovating every aspect of the game
to finally wipe clean memories of the series’ torrid past. Without
the aid of implants, Botox or under-wired support, Lara’s looking
better than ever.
The
game opens with a flashback to Lara’s youth, where she and her
mother are involved in a plane crash in the
Himalayas
. After escaping the wreckage, the two stumble across ancient ruins
and legendary artefacts, but an unfortunate series of events results
in only Lara making it back into civilisation. From here the game
cuts to current-day Lara, climbing a Bolivian cliff-face Mission
Impossible 2 style in search of an ancient temple complex.
However, events take a turn for the dramatic when an old face from
her past returns, and before you can say Indiana Jones, you’re in
search of one of history’s most infamous weapons.
When
Lara reaches the top of the Bolivian cliffs, the game pushes you
into action with its subtle and understated tutorial area. Rather
than bog you down with instructions and boring Set-Pieces, Lara
Croft; Tomb Raider: Legend gets you in the mood for adventuring
by allowing you to explore the opening area yourself, merely popping
up gameplay hints when they’re needed. It’s natural and
unforced, leaving you free to breeze through when you replay the
game, and if you’ve played any Platform/Adventure game from the
past five years you’ll barely even notice it.
We
never thought we’d say this, but Lara controls like a dream. Gone
are the nightmare days of the grid system with its sluggish turning
and ridiculous need for pixel-perfect alignment; in its place is a
completely free, uninhibited input method similar to the ones that
Third-Person games have had for years. Hardcore Tomb Raider fans
will weep tears of joy the first time they send Miss. Croft running,
rolling and jumping around the environments with the freedom she’s
always deserved, leaping from precipice-to-rope and from
rope-to-ledge in a series of silky-smooth manoeuvres.
Not
only is she faster and more gratifying to control, but Lara is now
equipped with a portable magnetic grapple, giving her even more
flexibility. You can use the grapple to latch onto metallic objects,
and either pull them towards you or pull yourself towards them. Over
the course of the game’s eight Levels you’ll be using it to
swing over ravines, yank enemies off ledges and even pull yourself
along as you ride a floating coffin. You can always tell that a new
addition to a character’s arsenal is a success when you can’t
see how you managed to play the previous games without it.
Crystal
Dynamics has managed to pack a fair bit of fighting action into the
game, and as a consequence our favourite heroine is a dab hand with
even more forms of weaponry. Although for most  of the game you’ll
be using her iconic akimbo-Pistols, you’ll also get access to
Grenades and Sub-Machine Guns, the odd Turret Emplacement and even
Grenade Launchers. Thankfully our Lara hasn’t become some kind of
crazed American gun-nut, carving a path of destruction and making
everyone sorry she had a traumatic childhood: she just has an easier
time killing the mercenaries that peculiarly turn up at pretty much
every location she visits. Despite this, combat is still the weakest
part of the game and hasn’t been refined as much as other aspects.
It is competent and breaks-up the adventuring well without having an
adverse effect to the game’s quality. At close-quarters the combat
becomes even more rewarding thanks to a selection of Special Moves;
when locked onto an enemy from a distance, you can roll around and
back-flip to avoid fire, but when you get up close you can knock
your foe to the floor with a swift kick, be it from standing or
sliding, and even more satisfyingly, you can jump onto a bad guy and
enter a Bullet-Time flip, filling  him, and the guy next to him, with
lead before you hit the ground. It’s still a complete pain in the
arse to kill animals, though.
The
story unfolds through the game at pace, never stuttering and at
points even pits you against interactive Cut-Scenes – a lá Resident
Evil 4 – where you have to quickly react to on-screen prompts
to keep the young Countess of Abbingdon alive and in one-piece. Your
search for one of history’s most elusive blades takes you to
Japan, Africa, South America and even back to England – oh, and
you can even head into Croft Manor for a spot of exploration.
However, the chances are you’ll spend quite a bit of time
re-exploring every location in the game, as you can uncover a number
of Collectable items in each, unlocking new costumes, secrets and
extra features. Sadly the game itself will only take you between ten
and twelve hours to finish off; the unofficially agreed length for
story-driven titles within the industry.
The
game throws in an extra twist with  some surprisingly fun motorbike
sections that involve chasing and killing at high-speed. The fun may
be simple and short-lived, mainly involving racing at full pelt with
the fire button held down while occasionally steering to pick up
Health Packs or take an alternate path. These may prove to be
contentious additions for die-hard fans, but they’re enjoyable and
short enough that they don’t feel unwelcome.
One
of the most puzzling additions to the game has to be Lara’s new
friends – her constant radio companion and logistics man Zip, and
her research assistant Alistair. While the two do provide some extra
voices to dispel the feeling of isolation, to be perfectly honest
they add very little to the experience. You don’t even get to know
why they’re working for Lara, or learn much about them at all –
a solitary moment where it’s assumed many of the players are
die-hard Tomb Raider fans. That said, all of the Voice Acting
is superb – especially that of the lovely Keeley Hawes as Lara –
and both the music and sound effects are top-notch.
One
of the concessions Crystal Dynamics has made to the game is a slight
simplification of the puzzles, which otherwise feel quite grand in
scale. The result is a number of intuitive logic and physics-related
puzzles, such as flipping boxes up onto a higher ledge via a see-saw
or racing back and forth to pull a statue’s arms free from their
restraints. The puzzles are at most  moderately difficult, and no
doubt fans will take issue with this fact. Boss battles, too, are
somewhat simplistic affairs, leaving you to either pump your foe
full of lead or use the environment to do them harm. They’re not
particularly original and only offer brief respite from the puzzle
solving, but thankfully quite rare in Lara Croft; Tomb Raider:
Legend.
One
thing no-one will have a problem with is just how good the game
looks. While the Xbox360 release may benefit from occasional
next-gen effects, the Xbox version still manage to impress with
their stunning attention to detail. Crystal Dynamics has finally
made Lara into the female Indiana Jones she’s always threatened to
be, and even managed to fill the game with memorable moments, such
as an incident with a motorbike on the rooftops of Japan, swan diving off a high-cliff into a lake, and even base jumping
into the middle of a combat zone. Lara Croft; Tomb Raider: Legend
- while not quite a classic - is a fantastic return to former glory
after years of falling standards and half-arsed sequels. The Croft
family’s honour has been restored with a game that’s a triumph
of design, adventure and good old fashioned fun that gamers have
always loved. 
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